Milwaukee Artist of the Week – 11/29/13 – Appleseeds
Are you a Milwaukee musician/band? You can submit your music to be the Milwaukee Artist of the Week by emailing links to info@BreakingAndEntering.net. We’ll check out every submission we get!
This week’s Milwaukee Artist of the Week is Appleseeds, a punk rock quartet with enough aggression and energy to knock you down in under four minutes. They’re everything that you could ever love about riot grrl punk; lo-fi guitars distorted to a listenable tone, breakneck speed, and just enough melody to keep you singing along. Led by frontwoman Flannery Steffens, their latest self-titled album is a garage rock thing of beauty. Rather than some of the wonderfully crafted recordings coming out of great studios in Milwaukee like Howl Street Recordings, the band opted to record their entire album in their basement on a Zoom portable recorder. I didn’t know that was an actual thing, but there was obviously the right amount of gear plugged into it to give the record a great sound with an overall gritty feel. Loaded with buzzy guitars and a surprisingly clean drum sound, Appleseeds manages to put together an 11 song party, which leaves nothing to the imagination.
Let’s be clear, this album isn’t a sonic masterpiece, but they don’t want it to be, and quite frankly, it’s better that way. This is the essence of what has always made punk rock records so great; the wall of sound is everything from a guitar to a cymbal to every other hissing, buzzing noise in the background. In fact, this album is reminiscent of the great punk albums (or homemade cassettes) that shaped the early days of legends like Black Flag and the Circle Jerks. Appleseeds add an increasingly addictive component to their sound, as well. There is a good deal of catchy melodies throughout the album, which is the product of great songwriting no matter what genre you’re talking about. Their first release, August 2012’s “BOOM!”, is more of the same, and it’s all great. This is what you’d expect to hear come out of a basement party show, and with the energy in Appleseeds’ songs, that high speed atmosphere has to carry over to their live show. This is DIY, punk rock, the way it really was meant to be. Stream Appleseeds’ self-titled album below:
For more Appleseeds, check out their Facebook and Bandcamp.
